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Diskless Windows 7 installation for bootcamp: can it be done?
Trentus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey hip cats and groovy dolls.
So, the other night I decided it wanted to resize my partition scheme on my macbook pro; give a little more space to OSX and shrink my Windows partition a bit. I figured while I was at it, I might as well upgrade my old XP install to something a little more modern, which'll really come in handy the next time I have to talk someone using windows 7 through a task over the phone.
So, I bought me a key, grabbed the disk image, and threw it on a DVD and went to set the bugger up... the only problem was, my mac refused to boot from it. Upon further inspection, it seems to think the disk is blank. My old winXP desktop machine reads the disk fine. The DVD drive in my macbook has always been a bit temperamental with regards to what media it actually reads (something I've been meaning to get fixed, but I generally just set up the dvd drive on my desktop as a share to get around it).
Then I remembered "Hey, Windows 7 is meant to be easy to install from a flash drive!" So I tried various methods to create an install usb key, both manual and automated methods (even using microsoft's official tool), however the macbook just won't recognize it as being a bootable device. Alrighty then... what else can I try...
Next I grabbed a trial key for Parallels and decided to try to set it up through that. Instead of telling it to install to a virtual HD, I just told it to use the partition I'd made for it. This actually worked to some degree. I ran the initial set up through Parallels, and once it had extracted all the files it needed, I jumped into fdisk and made the Windows partition bootable, restarted and boot from it. It boot into the setup wizard and attempted to complete the installation. I got so far as entering user account details and setting up the wifi, and then catastrophic failure! It throws an error telling me that setup has failed, and to restart the installation. I restart the machine, boot to the Windows partition, and nothing happens. I erase the partition, repeat the steps I performed in Parallels, boot back into the Windows partition, run the set up, and it fails in exactly the same place.
Grr... getting annoyed now. The last thing I've tried is creating a small 10g partition, making it bootable, and throwing the contents of the disk image onto it. I restart, try to boot to it, and all it tells me is that it's an invalid system disk... lé sigh...
So, after total and utter humiliation, I come to you for advice (or even just a shoulder to cry on). Has anyone ever managed to do a diskless install of Windows 7 to a bootcamp partition? How the hell?!
So, the other night I decided it wanted to resize my partition scheme on my macbook pro; give a little more space to OSX and shrink my Windows partition a bit. I figured while I was at it, I might as well upgrade my old XP install to something a little more modern, which'll really come in handy the next time I have to talk someone using windows 7 through a task over the phone.
So, I bought me a key, grabbed the disk image, and threw it on a DVD and went to set the bugger up... the only problem was, my mac refused to boot from it. Upon further inspection, it seems to think the disk is blank. My old winXP desktop machine reads the disk fine. The DVD drive in my macbook has always been a bit temperamental with regards to what media it actually reads (something I've been meaning to get fixed, but I generally just set up the dvd drive on my desktop as a share to get around it).
Then I remembered "Hey, Windows 7 is meant to be easy to install from a flash drive!" So I tried various methods to create an install usb key, both manual and automated methods (even using microsoft's official tool), however the macbook just won't recognize it as being a bootable device. Alrighty then... what else can I try...
Next I grabbed a trial key for Parallels and decided to try to set it up through that. Instead of telling it to install to a virtual HD, I just told it to use the partition I'd made for it. This actually worked to some degree. I ran the initial set up through Parallels, and once it had extracted all the files it needed, I jumped into fdisk and made the Windows partition bootable, restarted and boot from it. It boot into the setup wizard and attempted to complete the installation. I got so far as entering user account details and setting up the wifi, and then catastrophic failure! It throws an error telling me that setup has failed, and to restart the installation. I restart the machine, boot to the Windows partition, and nothing happens. I erase the partition, repeat the steps I performed in Parallels, boot back into the Windows partition, run the set up, and it fails in exactly the same place.
Grr... getting annoyed now. The last thing I've tried is creating a small 10g partition, making it bootable, and throwing the contents of the disk image onto it. I restart, try to boot to it, and all it tells me is that it's an invalid system disk... lé sigh...
So, after total and utter humiliation, I come to you for advice (or even just a shoulder to cry on). Has anyone ever managed to do a diskless install of Windows 7 to a bootcamp partition? How the hell?!
Trentus on
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I'm not sure what else to say to help you. I was able to set up Win7 Beta via Bootcamp from an ISO I burned to a DVD and it worked flawlessly. I've since moved to the retail version (I do need to update Parallels...).
Really though, if you're having hardware issues and you have some sort of warranty with Apple, they are very good about helping you resolve your issues.
You'll need to install rEFIt— the standard firmware, as you've discovered, won't recognize a Windows drive as bootable. I recall it being pretty painless. Then you should be able to install from USB.
For some reason I don't remember that also didn't work for me, though, so I had to install using Parallels— that was kind of a hassle, as I recall it involved having to shutdown the VM at some arbitrary point and reboot into Windows to complete the installation. So I'd give the thumbdrive a shot first.
Argh, how did I not think of installing rEFIt?! After all the testing I did with it a few years ago at work (was trying to see if a triple boot system would be feasible, and how automated we could make the process).
I'd wager that if you kill the VM just after it's completed the extracting setup files phase, then you could reboot and finish the install natively. Or at least that's what I did the first time I tried it (which unfortunately ultimately failed).
Aight, lets see if I can get this going. Thanks guys!